The laws of life (by Reneé Fredes & Patricia de la Llera)

The weather was hot that morning in Ituzaingó city. The forecast announced that it was going to rain during the night. That was the reason why Mrs. Maria saw a long active file of ants carrying pieces of leaves to their homes. That situation worried Maria because she thought about her favourite roses. In desperation, she went to the garage to get the ant poison.

When Maria came back to the garden, she saw her roses completely eaten by the ants. Those roses have been the last gift that her mother had given her before she died. Suddenly, a feeling of gloom and depression involved her. She went to the kitchen and prepared some tea but instead of sugar she used the ant poison. Without hesitating she had two cups of it.

During the afternoon the hungry red ants entered Maria’s house as always and went around the death body.

“Why is she so quiet?” asked one of the ants.

“Oh! Mrs. Maria has died!” shouted another ant.

“What‘s wrong with that?” said little Red ant “It makes room for new people”.

Little Red Ant (by Melina Núñez and Florencia Villaverde)

Once upon a time, there was a family of red Ants who lived in a big tree in the forest. The family was made of: Father Ant, Mother Ant and their daughter, whose name was little Red Ant.

Everyday, they worked hard to get food because winter was coming. They got up very early in the morning and went to bed at midnight.

One day, little Red Ant was looking for food in the forest and suddenly discovered a very little ant, whose name was Rose Ant, sitting on a stone and crying. She asked her what the problem was.

“I can’t find my tree, I am lost,” Rose Ant answered. 

Little Red Ant offered her new friend to stay with her and her family until she found the tree where she lived. Rose accepted and went to little Red Ant’s home.

When they got there, little Red Ant’s father was not happy because they had not enough room for Rose to stay there. Little Red Ant suggested him to give some leaves that were in the living room to their neighbours in order to have more space for the new guest.

“I won’t give the leaves to the neighbours, dear daughter,” said Father Ant really angry.

“What’s wrong with that?” said little Red Ant. “It makes room for new people,” she added. “And you have always taught me to share with other people,” she concluded.

Her father realized that little Red Ant was right and allowed the new guest to stay with them until she found her tree.

Forum 1: Characterising the stories for our students

Two meetings ago we set to discuss the elements and characteristics that should make a story for children. Among other things, we arrived at the conclusion that audience age was determinant in conditioning any possible answer. Thus, it seems necessary to contextualise and specify our audience before advancing on this discussion. 

Having in mind that our aim this year would be to teach in primary schools, let us agree on Argentine primary students of English as a foreign language as our expected audience. This settled, then:

What elements should characterise the stories we choose or create for them?

You can join the debate by clicking on the 'comment' button and sharing your opinion with us.

The new beginning (Laura Dambolena and Cristian Matas)

It was a rainy night. It was barely possible to see the surroundings. It was raining so heavily that the entrance of the ant-hill was flooded.

It was such a disaster that the ants had to run away in order to escape from the water coming. The water invaded the place all over. There was a dense feeling of desolation, so the only motivation for them to move away was the basic instinct of survival. Then, the leader, the red ant, guided the group to a new cave that was not finished yet.

It was an enormous place. Other colonies of ants were gathering there. Although at the beginning the little red ant had thought that all the colonies would fit in the new cave, she realized that they could not. The groups organized themselves in order to finish the construction of the “new home”. Soon, they figured out that they would have to build up new rooms. The ants asked the red ant for the reason why she was doing those kind of reforms. “What’s wrong with that?” said the little red ant. “It makes room for new people”.

Finally, they could make this place big enough for all the community and now they live as only one colony.